Weeks 4 and 5 of 20 weeks to Sub 2:20?

W/C 1st June

M 8 miles (6:26mm), 5 miles (7:00mm)

T 4 miles (7:04mm), 8.5 miles including 2x[3mins(2:00), 4X30s(60s)], 3mns

W 7 miles(7:06mm), 5 miles (7:01mm)

T 6 miles (6:40mm)

F 10 miles aborted acceleration run (6:11mm)

S Rest
S 9 miles (6:24mm)

Total 64 miles (6:41mm)

W/C 8th June

M 12 miles (6:43mm)

T 9.5 miles (6:34mm)

W 8.5 miles inc. 4X[600(90s), 400(60s), 300(45s), 200(90s)]

T 7 miles (7:18mm)

F Rest

S 10 miles (6:22mm)

S 17 miles (6:19mm)

Total 65.5 miles (6:36mm)

A double blog this week, having been on holiday from Friday 5^th June and never getting round to do one while I was away. Luckily I still managed to get some training in!

Starting with the w/c1st June before I went away and I had a good session on the grass with Mike Baxter’s group at Carnegie. It was incredibly windy but I was pleased with the hard efforts I managed to sustain on the 3 minute reps and was also running well on the 200s. Although not being used to the shorter stuff I could certainly feel the build-up of lactic in the legs which made the last 3 minute effort incredibly tough. Paces for the 3 minute reps were just under 5 minute miling although it’s hard to be sure given the Garmin accuracy around a shorter circuit. The rest of the week was easy running but with the intention to try an acceleration run on the Friday where I would go out and do 40 minutes at my usual steady pace and then gradually up the pace to running pretty much flat out towards the end of the run. Well! Unfortunately it was a bit of a failure again! I started off OK in the 7^th mile and upped it into the 8^th but by the 9^th I was hanging on and going slower and slower with a mile of 5:20 so I decided to can it and run the rest in easy. I had been feeling a little under the weather since Tuesday’s session but no real outward signs of a cold but I am sure I must have had a low lying virus somewhere in the system as it just didn’t tally with how I should  be able to run that kind of session. I went on holiday that Friday afternoon so maybe my mind was elsewhere but even so it prompted me to take the opportunity to take a rest day on the Saturday and avoid a long run on the Sunday just to make sure things were out of my system.

So going into last week I didn’t have much of a plan really other than to try to run most days but recognising that it would probably be difficult to run more than once a day and plus I wanted to take the opportunity to spend some quality time with the family as well as have a bit of rest and relaxation myself! The week ended up OK mileage wise with around 65, a long run of 17 at a decent pace and a good session on the Wednesday.

We were staying just outside Estepona and from my hotel I could see a decent mountain that I quite fancied trying to run up on the Monday morning. Anyway to cut a long story short, I set off in the general direction of said hill but missed! I still managed to get pretty high up though and it made for a pacy second half of the run and some quality views like below. I also had the pleasure of being chased by a goat and a sheep dog on my run! 

The session on Wednesday was kindly provided by Mike and I had been intending to do it along the Prom which as you’d expect is perfectly flat but I had spotted in a tourist information booklet that there was a brand spanking new track that has been built as part of a new multi-function leisure complex. It wasn’t a traditional oval nor was it tartan but it was free which appealed to my Yorkshireness! And thankfully was exactly 400m from the outside lane and with a marker at 200m too so it made the planned session easy to do to distance rather than time. To be honest  I didn't feel fantastic and was working hard from the beginning (perhaps after a couple too many glasses of Rioja on Tuesday evening!) but the splits were strong and I was only starting to slow towards the end. Paces for the 600s & 400s were on average around 4:40 pace which is very quick for me! So all in all an encouraging workout indeed. 

The rest of the week was steady running and even after a getting back early Sunday morning (c1:30am) I managed to get out fo0r a decent long run of 17 miles to take the weekly mileage total up to a respectable level given the singles and one rest day.

This week will now be about trying to get the mileage back up a little, reintroduce a few doubles and also squeezing in a session before a 10k race next Sunday. I’m not sure how it’ll go but it’s in Lincolnshire so hopeful that it’ll be pretty flat!

I'm also going to ensure I improve the diet a bit going forward. As you can imagine it lapsed a little on holiday so need to try and get a bit leaner as the summer's main target race (Podium 10k) is only five weeks away! I'm currently around 143.5 lbs which is only 4-5lbs above marathon race weight but it's enough to make a difference so need to shed the timber sensibly over the coming weeks.